A Change of Command
by Auguruj
Summary: The past tends to come back to bite you when you don't need it. When Jasper's past comes knocking, it brings around something the Cullens haven't seen yet.


"Bella, are you all right?" a beautiful black-haired girl asked of a brunette. Asked girl shook her head and turned to her.

"Yeah, I am," she mumbled. "I just feel like I was being watched again."

The black-haired girl laughed. Her laugh sounded like tinkling of a bell. "Which time is it now that you're looking around because you feel like that? Seventh? I don't even count it anymore. Come on, Bella."

"It's not my fault, Alice. I just have a feeling," Bella grumbled morosely.

"Bella," a boy with bronze hair said. "No one is here. We're telling you all the time. There is no one in the vicinity of this house. If there was, we would smell him."

"And we would smell him before he even saw us," added a big muscular guy.

"I know, Edward, Emmett. Just don't listen to me, okay? But I still think someone could be there. Maybe they just don't have any smell at all. You wouldn't smell him then. It could even be a vampire."

"Edward, Alice and Jasper would notice them through their gifts before we could even smell them, Bella. Don't worry," Carlisle assured her.

"Maybe you're just getting paranoid," remarked Rosalie unpleasantly. Bella just sighed.

"Okay then. So tomorrow again?" she resigned and walked to the door.

Everyone else moved after her, congregating on the porch to wave goodbye as she leaves. It was their routine that summer, she's grown even closer to the Cullens since James nearly killed her and Edward had to suck the venom out.

"The same time," confirmed Edward with his angel-like smile. "We'll be waiting."

Bella nodded and walked down the private road where she parked her car. She only covered half the distance when something hard and invisible jumped at her, and turned her so that she was facing the Cullens again. Then Bella saw that the thing was no longer invisible.

It was a vampire, a vampire who was encircling her with her arms in such a way that one crossed over her chest, blocking both of her arms, while the other arm rested on her neck. She was leaning over her, the dirty blonde hair falling across her face like a veil separating her from the Cullens.

"Tell them not to move!" the vampire hissed in Bella's ear, just loud enough for her human ears to catch it. The Cullens could just gasp in surprise at seeing the vampire appearing out of thin air like that.

Edward looked like he was about to attack the vampire when Bella regained her speech, and executed the given order.

"D-don't move!" she gasped out. Edward still looked like he wanted to leap down the stairs, but Carlisle put a stalling hand on his shoulder.

"The girl belongs with us," he said clearly, so that the vampire had no trouble hearing him at all. She giggled into Bella's ear silently.

"I watched you long enough to know that myself, thanks," she stated quietly, only for her ears again.

"You don't have to be afraid," she added. "I'm not about to hurt you. This approach simply works better. Maybe it will wake him up a bit. Now, call Jasper down here. Just him, and no one else."

Bella carefully tried turning her head. The vampire didn't stop her, so Bella finished the movement and looked into her face. She was met with a bright, rich orange stare with a bit of red mixed in.

"Uh..."

"A beginner vegetarian, Isabella. And do call Jasper for me now. I have some unfinished business to address with him," the vampire purred silently.

"Don't hurt him. Alice will be unhappy," Bella whispered pleadingly.

"Perhaps. She'd go looking for her true mate at least. _Call Jasper. _Now."

Bella sighed, but she didn't have a choice. That vampire had her literally in her grasp, and the slight inflection in her last sentence told her she wasn't going to ask again.

"Jas-Jasper? Come here, please. Just you," she called weakly.

Jasper blinked, and Alice hung onto him immediately. He slowly extricated himself from the grasp of his wife, and walked down the stairs with wary caution.

"Tell him his talent's not working on me, please," the vampire asked her with satisfaction. "It's getting a little annoying. The same goes to Alice and your Edward."

"Your talent's not working on her. Neither is Edward's or Alice's," Bella repeated faintly. Jasper's face hardened and he looked very alert now.

"So no, you're not paranoid. Just extremely perceptive. I'll release you in a moment. Go wherever you want, just don't go close to Jasper. And don't stay put," the vampire added in amusement.

Jasper stopped three meters away.

"Who are you?" he asked warily, and slightly unfriendly.

The vampire relaxed her grip on Bella and pushed her an arm's length away. "Go."

Bella ran to the porch stairs, and right into Edwards arms.

"Major Jasper Whitlock," was all the vampire said in answer to Jasper's question. Jasper straightened and his jaw clenched.

The unfamiliar vampire turned straight to him, and threw the hair out of her face with one short head-shake. Jasper's eyes widened, and he flinched.

"Anabelle!" he blurted.

The vampire leaned her head to the side.

"So you do remember? I suppose you found it hard, forgetting the vampire you tried to kill?" the vampire stated sharply.

Jasper was silent, he just stared at her, his whole body tense. His face screwed up in an almost painful grimace.

"I've known you under many names. Major Jasper Whitlock, The God of War, The Bloodthirsty Machine. I've been watching you, and I have to regretfully conclude you are none of them anymore. Was the independent, strong, confident, and dangerous vampire turned into a tamed vegetarian panther-cub? I ask if you can even fight anymore," her voice was mocking him.

Jasper gritted his teeth again, but didn't react otherwise. She sighed and slipped a hand into a pocket of her hoodie, pulling out an old, worn-out leather glove. She threw it onto the dusty road in front of him.

"Well? Or did you already forget the manners your human mother taught you? A _lady_ is not to be turned down."

Jasper looked at the glove, laying in the dust and dirt, and raised his head with regret.

"I don't want to kill you, Ana. I never wanted to."

She jerked her head. "You didn't, but you would have done it. Bloodthirsty Machine, Mister Lethal, The God of War would have done it. We both know it. The tamed vegetarian pup won't do it, it doesn't even want to fight. It wants to forget, but the vampire memory's eternal. The pup sticks its head into the sand. But someone will chop if off one day."

He frowned. "Stop it, Ana."

"Why? Because the pup doesn't want to face memories? You should have killed off all the actors in the memories like you did everyone else. You were doing an excellent job out of it."

"What do you want, Anabelle?"

"You wanted to kill me. _Me_. I ran away. I want it to end. It began with fight, it will end with fight."

Jasper stared at her incredulously. "Ana..."

"No," she barked. "I didn't like the Bloodthirsty Machine, I don't like the tamed cowering cub."

"Ana..."

"Pick the glove up, Major Whitlock," vampire hissed. "Right. Now."

Jasper stared at her for a long time, then he sighed.

"I was glad when you ran off. I didn't want to fight you, or hurt you."

"You said that already," Anabelle snapped coldly. "But I didn't mean much compared to Maria's orders, did I? Only so much to make you let me run. Yet you allowed two others to do the same before, and they were just your friends. What you want doesn't matter much to me at this point. You didn't give me what I wanted. Give me what I want now, and we'll be even."

"But... I cannot kill you, Ana."

"You could then, you can now. _Pick up the goddamn glove_."

Jasper stood there undecided for a long time. Then his shoulders fell, and he bent down for the glove.

"No! Jasper!" Alice cried desperately, while being held back by Emmett. "Emmett, let me go!"

"It's in your interest to not let her go," the vampire remarked, but hardly bothered to look their way. "I am blocking her talent, but _I _do not need one to know what will happen to her if she interferes in this. It's time for a little show, Jasper."

Anabelle turned and started walking away from the house, to the open space between the house and the woods. Jasper looked at his family and Bella, and smiled apologetically.

"Anything happens, do not interfere. She's right, even though I would prefer to avoid fighting. But she's right," his face clearly showed the pain and sadness he felt.

"Jasper, who is it? You never talked of her," said Edward, still clutching onto Bella.

"Anabelle was one of the newborns I was supposed to get rid off when their powers started waning. I let her run, but she's right. If she stayed, in the end I would have done what Maria wanted from me," his face screwed up. "And that would be the end."

With that he turned and followed the vampire, who stood on her chosen spot now and waited for him, bored, and glaring darkly his way.

"You have the rules set up?" he asked her resignedly when he stopped thirty meters away.

"Close fight in the area bordered with the house on one side and the surrounding forest on the other. If any of your ignorant lawyerlings interfere, I'm killing them. Don't bother with your gift, I've got mine trained well enough to be sure it will last the fight."

"I wouldn't use talent in this kind of fight anyway. And no one will interfere, I owe you that."

"You owe me a lot more than what you admit," said the vampire in a very quiet, and very intense voice at the same time. "Be so kind and throw the glove up. We start with the first touch of ground."

Jasper looked like he wanted to say something very much, but then his shoulders fell again and he threw the glove into the air. The moment they heard the first part of leather hit the uppermost grass blades, they moved. Since then, Bella's human eyes couldn't see then, except for a blurred outline here and there.

"Edward?" Bella whispered quietly. She couldn't see them, but she still heard the loud sounds, as if blocks of stone were hitting each other repetitively.

"Do you want to go inside?" Edward asked her quietly, his face drawn in anxiety. Bella shook her head.

"No, I just... she didn't want to hurt me. She's been watching us, that's why I always felt like I was being watched. It was her. She's been here the whole time and did nothing. She could have killed me, but she didn't do it. Even now she didn't hurt me."

"That one doesn't want to hurt you," Rosalie snapped silently.

Meanwhile, the two vampires were circling and attacking each other. Gouges and places with torned out grass and other vegetation were appearing all around in high speed. Anabelle knew exactly when the cowardly cub completely transformed into Major Whitlock. His moves became more flowing and planned just a couple seconds into the fight. She smirked while bending and avoiding his attack. At the same time, she shot her hand out and hit him hard into his ribs. A loud creaking sound was heard.

"Greetings, Major Whitlock," she drawled, blocking his next move. A long time flew by since she was a part of Maria's army, but she still remembered the fighting style of Major Whitlock - the vampire who trained them in fighting when he was in better mood. In bad mood, he was turning into a God of War, but he mostly tended to be him during wars with other armies, not against his own.

Major Whitlock couldn't touch her, she was too good for that. She got a couple more hits in before he got his wits together, and retreated in favour of the God of War. That one was a harder opponent. He blocked as effectively as she did, and attacked the same way.

Anabelle smiled when he blocked an attack, which the Major would miss.

"Long time no see, God of War."

For a few minutes they tried to breach each other's walls, but Anabelle didn't expect she would actually manage on her part. Her fighting skills were about the same level as the abilities of the God of War, he was her equal. It has been that way for a while already when she escaped Maria.

Still, she didn't expect to win that fight. She knew every fighting mode, or rather every personality of the vampire whose biological name was Jasper Whitlock. Since coming to Forks, she met the tamest of them all - the Cowardly Cub. In her youth and newborn months, she came to know all others. Most of the time apart from war it was Major Whitlock - a human Major who got turned into a vampire and didn't lose much of his soldier self in the transformation. In the battles he was the God of War - a vampire whose fighting skills got him famous nearly everywhere in the South. In the more difficult battles, he tended to become Mister Lethal or the Bloodthirsty Machine - first of which still possessed some minuscule part of Major Whitlock's self, and if one was careful he could reason with him without losing a head in the process. The second was exactly as his name suggested - a machine. There was not a single human cell in him, not a piece of conscious thought. The Bloodthirsty Machine didn't talk, it destroyed. It was a malicious, tearing beast who used every fighting skill of Major Whitlock for only one purpose and nothing could stop him. Nothing but death of the victim or Maria's repeated order.

She hated and feared the Bloodthirsty Machine. But she didn't have to meet him today. When Jasper switches into the regime of Mister Lethal, it will be just a matter of time until he defeats her and finishes it. So no, she didn't expect to win. But she didn't come there to win.

For almost ninety years she wandered alone. She had to end it. Either he'll kill her or he'll accept her, you could never be sure with Mister Lethal. There was only one thing she knew for sure - he will end it. And that was all she wanted anymore.

Mister Lethal came to play before their fighting area lost the last trace of grass. The balanced fight was suddenly a thing of the past and Anabelle was quickly forced into defence. Despite the difficulties with which she tried to keep up with her opponent, a weak but pleased smile adorned her face.

"Glad to meet you again, Mister Lethal," she whispered, as soon as she got a moment's respite from the danger.

Just moments later it was over. As she thought, she couldn't keep up with Mister Lethal. Suddenly, he pierced through her defences, got to her back, and his arms snaked around her chest much the same way as she did with Bella earlier. She felt his teeth on her throat, but he didn't bite. A moment before he breathed in, and stilled.

She stilled as well, in answer to immediate death threat, and didn't dare to even blink.

For nearly a minute he simply stood there, holding her in check, and breathing in her scent.

"Open your emotions to me," at long last the said quietly, and Anabelle shivered against her will. If she had any doubts before about him being Mister Lethal, which she didn't, now she would be certain. Others from his clan must have realized by now that they were not dealing the Cowardly Cub anymore. His voice was quiet, iced over, full of authority and confidence. That voice alone was enough for you to know that if you wanted to live, you couldn't try a thing.

Anabelle lifted her shield silently to let his talent through. She still blocked the other two - boyfriend of that human girl, and the vampire who dared to pretend Jasper belonged to her.

Mister Lethal didn't show he was reading her already, but he didn't have to, anyway. She knew exactly what he will see in her. She respected and admired Mister Lethal, those were the two main emotions that never disappeared when she had the honour. The backing, but still present, were love and caution. They were weaker than the first two - she loved the real mind, the real self of Major Whitlock, but Mister Lethal only contained a little part of him. She knew Mister Lethal felt that love, and he knew it was an emotion that was always present, and mostly leading, when she was face to face with the God of War or Major Whitlock.

"Long time no see, Anabelle," Mister Lethal remarked, but didn't loosen the grip he had on her. Anabelle relaxed completely and all the fighting left her. He remembered her. He recognized the emotions he felt from her, he remembered what he felt from her when the control belonged to Major or God. Mister Lethal was more or less controlled by instincts, the animalistic vampire part of his being. He didn't need to read her thoughts, he knew why she came there. She didn't have to do anything more. Everything depended on him now.

"I owe you an apology for both of my tamer selves," Mister Lethal continued quietly, indifferently. "None of them wanted to accept it even though they knew as soon as I found out. It may be of an interest to you that ever since letting you go, they never allowed me to take control. They knew what I would do, and they couldn't allow it when they had Maria, now could they?"

He paused for a while. "Tell me, darling, why did it take you so long to finally get your arse here?"

A fearful tremble shot through Anabelle. His grip didn't change, but she knew what that tone meant. But why was he angry with _her_?

"I don't understand, sir," she whispered, frightened. While he knew what was going on and who she was to him, Mister Lethal wouldn't keep from hurting her. She didn't think he would kill her, but still...

"For more than eighty years you kept clear and let your mate do whatever he wanted. I can't take the control whenever I want, something you know very well, and because they didn't let me through I couldn't seek you out to end this ridiculous farce. But what excuse do _you _have?"

She knew it wasn't the best of her ideas while he still had full access to her emotions, but she couldn't dull the sudden flare of anger at his words.

"They would have both killed me for Maria if I came back, and just afterwards realize what it was that they did. I couldn't know if Maria ordered them to finish what they started, just as I couldn't know if you were in control or if you would behave differently. When I found out you left Maria, I didn't know if it was safe to approach, and I didn't know if I could take another rejection. I decided to try only when I could take it no longer, and I didn't care was happened anymore. It took me a few years to track you down. I _do not appreciate_ you blaming me for something your tamer personalities caused."

Gradually, her voice grew colder and harder, and she more or less just hissed the last sentence at him.

He chuckled into her ear. "So you still have your spark, don't you, Anabelle? I wasn't certain, though that trick with Bella had potential. So it seems you can be salvaged yet, even though they did a real number on you. You're but a shadow of my mate, but that will change quickly now."

She didn't even manage to start hoping before he continued.

"I always recognised you, Anabelle, and now that you are finally here, I will not waste another minute. I can't accept you while you are still so damaged, but worry not. I will stay here until you pick yourself up, and then you will be mine. Once the bond is complete, not even those two idiots will wish to change it."

"Three," objected Anabelle, but her face glowed with happiness. When she went there, she had no idea Mister Lethal was on her side. She had no clue he recognized her as his mate. If she knew that, she would seek him once she heard he left Maria. Or she would have found a way to circumvent Maria and get him in control before that.

"You don't have to worry about that anymore. My basic personality is the Major. The Cowardly Cub, as you put it, will never appear again - he damaged my reputation more than enough already. And you don't have to fear the Machine. When the bond is complete, he will not hurt you and you will be able to deactivate him."

With that, he gave her jugular a short lick and straightened. She felt like she was about to burst with happiness and love. She knew that from that moment onwards, love would be one of the main emotions she felt for Mister Lethal as well, just for what he did for her now. For recognizing and accepting her all along, while his tamer personalities failed to.

Her dead heart twitched when she noticed an extremely rare smile appear on his face.

"Glad to be appreciated, mate," he purred to her. Then he turned to the house to take care of the loose threads left there.


End file.
